Tim Middleton’s homebrew 3D ABS
printer spitting out whistles for the
crowd (Figure 31). You can follow
CIRC at http://circ.mtco.com.

Next year, the iHobby Expo is
scheduled for October 11-14, and
will move from Chicago to the I-X
Center in Cleveland, OH. I’m not sure
what that means to Mecha-Mayhem,
but I’m hearing rumors of a collaborative
fighting robot event involving
Mecha-Mayhem’s CRCA and Ohio’s
House of Robotic Destruction
(HORD). Watch for it on CRCA’s
website at www.thecrca.org. SV

FIGURE 30.
Mech Warfare.

FIGURE 31. 3D printer making
whistle from extruded ABS.

The History of Robt
Combat: From Humble
Beginnings to
Multinational Sensation

● by Morgan Berry

Most of the memories of my childhood are fairly typical:
dance recitals, first days of school,
climbing trees in the backyard, etc.
Others — like a vivid memory of
staring intently into a plexiglass
arena while two 3 lb RC robots
attacked each other — are much less
common. I learned words like servo
and solder, practiced tank steering
through an obstacle course of
orange cones in my garage, and
trash talked with middle-aged nerds;
I now realize none of this was a
normal childhood experience.

At a young age, my brothers
and I had the great fortune to
become involved in the world of
robot combat through my father
(one of those aforementioned
middle-aged nerds). The years I was
involved with the sport were some
of my happiest. In the haze of
childhood, I had no idea that the
unique niche sport I had found my
way into had an equally interesting
past. The small slice of the sport I
had experienced was just part of a
much longer history.

The Beginning

Long before the glitz and
glamour of Comedy Central’s
BattleBots™
brought mass
appeal to the
sport, robot
combat had much
humbler
beginnings. The
sport got its start
in October 1989 at
the ultimate
breeding ground
for all things nerdy:
convention. The MileHiCon — a
convention running since 1969 in
Denver — featured the first actual
tournament promoting robotic
battles called the Critter Crunch.
This turbulent start is outlined in
Brad Stone’s book Gearheads — a
fantastic read for anyone interested
in the history of robot combat.